


Weight

by pizza_party_in_the_tardis



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fallen Castiel, Hospitals, Human Castiel, M/M, Married Castiel/Dean Winchester, Married Couple, fallen!cas, human!Cas, married!destiel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-05
Updated: 2013-07-05
Packaged: 2017-12-17 19:45:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/871306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pizza_party_in_the_tardis/pseuds/pizza_party_in_the_tardis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel was fallen. He could no longer go without eating. He could no longer pop from place to place at will. He could no longer smite demons with a touch. But worst of all, he could no longer heal the human he loved the most.<br/>_______________________________________<br/>Updates at least once a week! Keep checking back!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Weight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "What's the matter? 
> 
> You don't think you deserve to be saved."

 

Though Castiel had lost all of his angelic abilities when Heaven was sealed off, he still had a supernatural sixth sense about him. It could have just been extraordinarily keen human intuition, leftover from Jimmy Novak’s sensitive mind, that gave him a direct wavelength to the happenings of the world around him. Or maybe it was a little bit of Castiel's Grace left behind in some small corner of his mind that told him when things were coming, when things were wrong, or when something bad had just happened. When he and Dean had still been out on the road hunting with Sam, it had saved their lives a few times. It had always come as a tugging in his chest. It was normally like a force was pulling him, directing him to or away from something. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant sensation, but it had never hurt like this before. He felt it suddenly, like a bullet ripping through his sternum, a sharp, heavy pain that burst into his chest and slowly settled through his entire body. At first he thought maybe all of those burgers had taken their toll on his vessel’s heart and he was experiencing a heart attack, but as the feeling spread through his body like molten lead, he realized this was much worse. This was his intuition screaming out in a new and terrifying way. He felt its metal grip tighten around his heart and he almost dropped to the ground seconds before his phone actually rang. As the high-pitched tone rang out into the air, the sinking feeling in his gut became overwhelming. It was as if all of the lead coursing through his veins and arteries had quickly condensed into an anvil in his stomach- a rough, black anvil, resting ominously in his body, pressing his lungs into his ribcage, forcing his heart into his throat, and weighing like a boulder on his gut. This had all taken place in less than three minutes, but Cas was acutely aware of every single sensation.  The weight of the ugly thing forced him to his knees and threatened to sink his mind into darkness with it. He fumbled with heavy arms to wrench the phone from his pocket. He clawed to get it open, feeling as if he would sink into the floor any second. He struggled to lift his arm to his ear and a stabbing shiver rippled up his spine, thrusting broken needles under his skin along the way. Cas didn’t know it, but this was what it felt like to have a profound bond broken.

* * *

 

“Castiel Winchester?” a professional voice urged on the other end, anxious to get the syllables out of their mouth.

“Yes. Please tell me what’s happened.” Cas asked evenly, trying to compose himself against the rough weight scraping against his insides. His knees were still firmly planted to the floor, both arms supporting the phone against gravity. The woman on the other end seemed taken aback that he already knew something was wrong, but she was determined to remain professional.

Quickly she spit out “There’s been an accident. I’m afraid your husband Dean is in emergency surgery right now.” She paused, waiting for a reaction from him, but Cas didn’t notice. The phone slid from his hand, crashing onto the ground without a noise. Everything had fallen still. There was no sound or movement in the air and Castiel felt like he had been thrust into nothingness. He struggled to catch his breath. It felt as if the anvil in his stomach had been violently ripped from his body, taking the air in his lungs with it. He had known it would be something terrible, something horrific beyond words, but it couldn’t be this. He wasn’t ready for this.

Cas began to weep. Something had happened to Dean, his Dean. Something had happened to Dean Winchester, the righteous man Castiel had raised from perdition and fought alongside to end the Apocalypse. Something had happened to the man that had looked at God’s plan for humanity and ripped it to shreds, demanding people decide their own fate. This was the man that had awoken something in Castiel by doing so. Cas had always been a little rebellious, unable to follow orders to the exact letter, and he had always questioned things too much, and it was Dean who helped him understand and accept that this was a good thing. Dean had raised many questions- Why were they all here? What was the point now that God’s plan had been destroyed? If they could now decide their own fate, what would Castiel’s be? Dean had unknowingly made Castiel ask himself these questions, but he had also become Castiel’s answer to them. Dean had become Castiel’s reason to live, his plan, his fate. It had taken time, but slowly, Castiel and Dean had both realized they were each other’s reason to be. Cas felt a small flash of warmth ping against the heavy weight settled in his bones at this thought. Dean was his answer. Dean was always his answer. He was always there to answer the angel’s questions, about himself, about being human, about anything. And Castiel had questions right now.

There wasn’t a plan or a scheme for this to fit into anymore, so why was this happening?

Was God still out there letting things happen as they would?

Would praying to God help Dean?

Would God even listen?

Why Dean?

 An infinity of questions seared through Castiel’s brain, but this time Dean wasn’t there to answer them. He started to close his eyes and transport himself to Dean’s side when he remembered he could no longer will himself to Dean’s side. The emotional toll of the moment muddled his mind because it had been almost two years since he’d lost that ability. He cursed his humanity out loud. Cas focused his thoughts on getting to Dean and it seemed to lift some of the weight. His fear and dread had a purpose now and he felt the tendrils of fog and molten lead being reeled back into his core. It still pressed him uncomfortably, but he was able to move his limbs again and lift himself off the floor. The air around him remained dead and he had to push himself through it to hunt for the car keys.

 “Damn it, Dean,” Cas swore half-heartedly. Dean never set them in the same place twice.

* * *

 

 Cas had been numb and robotic on the drive to the hospital. He had focused all of his thoughts on the road, watching the outlines of the lane, drilling his eyes into the back of the car in front of him, measuring how heavy his foot felt on the pedal. He refused to let his mind wander because he knew it would drift to when Dean had taught him to drive. Ordinarily it was a sweet memory, a funny one even. Castiel was an angel of the Lord and didn’t really need to be taught how to do anything. He had seen humans crawl out of the muck. He had been around before the wheel and before the engine was even imagined. It was silly to think that he couldn’t operate a vehicle, but he knew it was something Dean wanted to do for him so he went along with it. He was fighting hard to stop it, but his mind was traveling back to that crisp fall day, just a few weeks after he had fallen and months before anything sparked between the two men. He easily envisioned Dean’s devilish smirk, his eyes clear and eager, as they climbed into the Impala’s leather bench seat, Cas behind the wheel. He recalled Dean’s arm reaching across him to point out the gauges. He remembered Dean’s hand clapping his shoulder and the deep voice asking, “So, Wings? Think you can handle it?” He felt tears welling up in his eyes and noticed his grip on the steering wheel was whitening his knuckles. He clenched his teeth, squeezed his eyes tight for a second, and forced the memory out of his head.

Inside the emergency wing of the hospital, he was asked to sign in and provide proof of spousal relation. Cas pulled the marriage certificate out of the folder of documents he had brought with him. Like a hastily edited film, blips of their wedding day passed through Cas’s head as he handed it over. They’d had a small wedding. Charlie had officiated after getting ordained through an online program and Sam had stood by her side, the best man for both of them. Besides the tourist Sam had paid to stick around as a witness there was no one left to invite. It had been a brief, but funny ceremony. At their “reception” (dinner at a local diner,) Charlie and Sam both shared their favorite stories of the couple.

Charlie talked about how she had known from the start, long before they had started dating, that Dean had a thing for the angel. Dean and Cas had heard her brag about this many times during the year and a half they had been dating, but it was still funny to hear her ramble on about it so they let her finish. Sam confessed that he definitely hadn’t suspected until much, much later. 

“Yeah. ‘Cause you’re oblivious!” Charlie piped up. 

“Well, you don’t know Dean like I do. It was a little surprising at first, ok? But looking back… I don’t know how I missed it.” Sam smiled knowingly at Dean.

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s talk about something else.” Dean had said gruffly, squeezing Cas’s hand under the table. Cas had laughed to himself. After all that time and a ring around his finger, Dean still felt embarrassed talking about the angel like that. It didn’t bother Cas because Dean was sweet and loving and affectionate when they were alone together. If Dean wanted to keep up his tough guy exterior, that was fine, as long as he left it at the door when he came in. “Remember that first hunt after we started dating?” Dean had started, picking up his coffee. 

Cas’s memory of that conversation blurred together. He remembered the entire table laughing at once, loud enough to get dirty looks from other patrons in the small diner. Their wedding day had been unusual, but it was his and the memory of it threatened to bring more tears to his eyes, but he was interrupted when the receptionist handed the sheet back with an apologetic look in her eyes. She pointed Cas down the hall and he trudged into the waiting room. The old magazines, padded chairs, and a dusty ficus tree in the corner did little to camouflage the tiny space. This was where people came to sit out surgeries and operations and news about their loved ones. This is where scared and hurting people waited to receive the best or worst news of their lives and no matter how it was decorated, that harsh reality hung in the air.

Cas didn’t want to read about better gardening techniques or some CEO’s latest business innovation, so instead he sat spinning the ring on his finger. He stared at the ring, running his fingers over it and admiring the slight indent it had left on him. It was just a plain silver band, nothing extravagant, but it was more beautiful than anything Cas had ever seen in Heaven. He didn’t want to take the band off, so he tried to form a mental image of the engraving on the inside of the small circle of metal. It was just three words. Just three simple words Dean had had etched there on the band after Cas said yes- three words that meant more than “I love you.” “I love you” didn’t need to be said because Cas knew unquestionably that Dean loved him. When Dean had presented the newly-engraved ring back to Cas, he had explained why he chose the words he did.

“Cas, you know I love you, even when I don’t say it, but this… This is something I want you to remember forever. I want you to remember what you’ve done for me and what you continue to do for me every day. You make me feel worth something, Cas. You make me feel like something other than a shell, something other than a autonomous demon hunter. You make me feel like I can be something again, like I can have a real life, and I don’t want you to ever forget how important that is, how much I need that, Cas, how much I need _you_.” Dean had grabbed Cas’s hand and pressed the ring down into his palm so that Cas could observe the writing. Pressed into the metal in a simple font, like a secret, like a promise, were the three words that meant more to Castiel than anything else ever had.

“You saved me.”


End file.
